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New Study Suggests People of African Descent Have Neanderthal DNA Too
It’s time to correct past mistakes
It’s well-known that basically all modern European and Asian humans have at least some Neanderthal DNA. Many Asians, especially Melanesians, also have Denisovan DNA — another Human species that coexisted with Neanderthals and us.
African populations, however, were left out of the equation due to technical issues and because experts assumed ancestral African populations and Neanderthals were geographically isolated from each other at the time. Then in January 2020, researchers learned such assumptions were a mistake.
Interbreeding
A little over a decade ago, in 2010, researchers mapped the whole Neanderthal genome and published their findings for the first time. Since then, it’s been thought that all European and Asian homo sapiens have about 2 percent Neanderthal DNA — and many Asian, especially Melanesians, also have up to 6 percent Denisovan DNA.
Let’s just say H. sapiens interbred a lot with other human species. This fact adds weight to a 2021 study suggesting interbreeding with us played a larger role in the Neanderthal extinction than violence between species. And knowing all of this makes it seem obvious that everyone alive today likely has trace amounts…
